Anna Andreyevna Akhmatova was born Anna Gorenko into an upper-class family in Odessa, the Ukraine, in 1889. Her interest in poetry began in her youth, but when her father found out about her aspirations, he told her not to shame the family name by becoming a "decadent poetess". He forced her to take a pen name, and she chose the last name of her maternal great-grandmother. She attended law school in Kiev and married Nikolai Gumilev, a poet and critic, in 1910. Shortly after the marriage, he travelled to Abyssinia, leaving her behind. While Gumilev was away, Akhmatova wrote many of the poems that would be published in her popular first book, Evening. Her son Lev was also born in 1912. He was raised by his paternal grandmother, who disliked Akhmatova. Akhmatova protested this situation, but her husband supported his family. She would visit with her son during holidays and summer. Later, Akhmatova would write that "motherhood is a bright torture. I was not worthy of it."

I have enough treasures from the pastto last me longer than I need, or want.You know as well as I . . . malevolent memorywon't let go of half of them:a modest church, with its gold cupolaslightly askew; a harsh chorusof crows; the whistle of a train;a birch tree haggard in a fieldas if it had just been sprung from jail;a secret midnight conclaveof monumental Bible-oaks;and a tiny rowboat that comes drifting outof somebody's dreams, slowly foundering.Winter has already loitered here,lightly powdering these fields,casting an impenetrable hazethat fills the world as far as the horizon.I used to think that after we are gonethere's nothing, simply nothing at all.Then who's that wandering by the porchagain and calling us by name?Whose face is pressed against the frosted pane?What hand out there is waving like a branch?By way of reply, in that cobwebbed cornera sunstruck tatter dances in the mirror.

RequiemNot under foreign skiesNor under foreign wings protected -I shared all this with my own peopleThere, where misfortune had abandoned us.[1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, Ispent seventeen months waiting in prison queues inLeningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never inher life heard my name. Jolted out of the torporcharacteristic of all of us, she said into my ear(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describethis?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then thatsomething like a smile slid across what had previouslybeen just a face.[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]

DEDICATION

Mountains fall before this grief,A mighty river stops its flow,But prison doors stay firmly boltedShutting off the convict burrowsAnd an anguish close to death.Fresh winds softly blow for someone,Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this,We are everywhere the same, listeningTo the scrape and turn of hateful keysAnd the heavy tread of marching soldiers.Waking early, as if for early mass,Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun,Lower every day; the Neva, mistier:But hope still sings forever in the distance.The verdict. Immediately a flood of tears,Followed by a total isolation,As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out,But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.Where are you, my unwilling friends,Captives of my two satanic years?What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.[March 1940]

INTRODUCTION[PRELUDE]

It happened like this when only the deadWere smiling, glad of their release,That Leningrad hung around its prisonsLike a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.Shrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sangShort songs of farewellTo the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,As they, in regiments, walked along -Stars of death stood over usAs innocent Russia squirmedUnder the blood-spattered boots and tyresOf the black marias.

I

You were taken away at dawn. I followed youAs one does when a corpse is being removed.Children were crying in the darkened house.A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God. . .The cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-coldsweatOn your brow - I will never forget this; I will gather

To wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy (1)Inconsolably, beneath the Kremlin towers.[1935. Autumn. Moscow]

II

Silent flows the river DonA yellow moon looks quietly onSwanking about, with cap askewIt sees through the window a shadow of youGravely ill, all aloneThe moon sees a woman lying at homeHer son is in jail, her husband is deadSay a prayer for her instead.

III

It isn't me, someone else is suffering. I couldn't.Not like this. Everything that has happened,Cover it with a black cloth,Then let the torches be removed. . .Night.

IV

Giggling, poking fun, everyone's darling,The carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo (2)If only you could have foreseenWhat life would do with you -That you would stand, parcel in hand,Beneath the Crosses (3), three hundredth inline,Burning the new year's iceWith your hot tears.Back and forth the prison poplar swaysWith not a sound - how many innocentBlameless lives are being taken away. . .[1938]

V

For seventeen months I have been screaming,Calling you home.I've thrown myself at the feet of butchersFor you, my son and my horror.Everything has become muddled forever -I can no longer distinguishWho is an animal, who a person, and how longThe wait can be for an execution.There are now only dusty flowers,The chinking of the thurible,Tracks from somewhere into nowhereAnd, staring me in the faceAnd threatening me with swift annihilation,An enormous star.[1939]

VI

Weeks fly lightly by. Even so,I cannot understand what has arisen,How, my son, into your prisonWhite nights stare so brilliantly.Now once more they burn,Eyes that focus like a hawk,And, upon your cross, the talkIs again of death.[1939. Spring]

VIITHE VERDICT

The word landed with a stony thudOnto my still-beating breast.Nevermind, I was prepared,I will manage with the rest.

I have a lot of work to do today;I need to slaughter memory,Turn my living soul to stoneThen teach myself to live again. . .

But how. The hot summer rustlesLike a carnival outside my window;I have long had this premonitionOf a bright day and a deserted house.[22 June 1939. Summer. Fontannyi Dom (4)]

VIIITO DEATH

You will come anyway - so why not now?I wait for you; things have become too hard.I have turned out the lights and opened the doorFor you, so simple and so wonderful.Assume whatever shape you wish. Burst inLike a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on meLike a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,Or, with a simple tale prepared by you(And known by all to the point of nausea), take meBefore the commander of the blue caps and let meglimpseThe house administrator's terrified white face.I don't care anymore. The river YeniseySwirls on. The Pole star blazes.The blue sparks of those much-loved eyesClose over and cover the final horror.[19 August 1939. Fontannyi Dom]

1.I have learned how faces fall,How terror can escape from lowered eyes,How suffering can etch cruel pagesOf cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.I know how dark or ash-blond strands of hairCan suddenly turn white. I've learned to recogniseThe fading smiles upon submissive lips,The trembling fear inside a hollow laugh.That's why I pray not for myselfBut all of you who stood there with meThrough fiercest cold and scorching July heatUnder a towering, completely blind red wall.

2.The hour has come to remember the dead.I see you, I hear you, I feel you:The one who resisted the long drag to the open window;The one who could no longer feel the kick of familiarsoil beneath her feet;The one who, with a sudden flick of her head, replied,

'I arrive here as if I've come home!'I'd like to name you all by name, but the listHas been removed and there is nowhere else to look.So,I have woven you this wide shroud out of the humblewordsI overheard you use. Everywhere, forever and always,I will never forget one single thing. Even in newgrief.Even if they clamp shut my tormented mouthThrough which one hundred million people scream;That's how I wish them to remember me when I am deadOn the eve of my remembrance day.If someone someday in this countryDecides to raise a memorial to me,I give my consent to this festivityBut only on this condition - do not build itBy the sea where I was born,I have severed my last ties with the sea;Nor in the Tsar's Park by the hallowed stumpWhere an inconsolable shadow looks for me;Build it here where I stood for three hundred hoursAnd no-one slid open the bolt.Listen, even in blissful death I fearThat I will forget the Black Marias,Forget how hatefully the door slammed and an old womanHowled like a wounded beast.Let the thawing ice flow like tearsFrom my immovable bronze eyelidsAnd let the prison dove coo in the distanceWhile ships sail quietly along the river.[March 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

FOOTNOTES

1 An elite guard which rose up in rebellionagainst Peter the Great in 1698. Most were eitherexecuted or exiled.2 The imperial summer residence outside StPetersburg where Ahmatova spent her early years.3 A prison complex in central Leningrad near theFinland Station, called The Crosses because of theshape of two of the buildings.4 The Leningrad house in which Ahmatova lived.

Solitude So many stones have been thrown at me,That I'm not frightened of them anymore,And the pit has become a solid tower,Tall among tall towers.I thank the builders,May care and sadness pass them by.From here I'll see the sunrise earlier,Here the sun's last ray rejoices.And into the windows of my roomThe northern breezes often fly.And from my hand a dove eats grains of wheat...As for my unfinished page,The Muse's tawny hand, divinely calmAnd delicate, will finish it.

Under her dark veil she wrung her hands."Why are you so pale today?""Because I made him drink of stinging griefUntil he got drunk on it.How can I forget? He staggered out,His mouth twisted in agony.I ran down not touching the bannister

And caught up with him at the gate.I cried: 'A joke!That's all it was. If you leave, I'll die.'He smiled calmly and grimlyAnd told me: 'Don't stand here in the wind.' "

Now you're gone, and nobody says a wordabout your troubled and exalted life.Only my voice, like a flute, will mournat your dumb funeral feast.Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,I, sick with grief for the buried past,I, smoldering on a slow fire,having lost everything and forgotten all,would be fated to commemorate a manso full of strength and will and bright inventions,who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.

WillowAnd I grew up in patterned tranquillity, In the cool nursery of the young century. And the voice of man was not dear to me, But the voice of the wind I could understand. But best of all the silver willow. And obligingly, it lived With me all my life; it's weeping branches Fanned my insomnia with dreams. And strange!--I outlived it. There the stump stands; with strange voices Other willows are conversing Under our, under those skies. And I am silent...As if a brother had died.

White Night There will be thunder then. Remember me.Say â€˜ She asked for storms.â€™ The entireworld will turn the colour of crimson stone,and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.

That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,when for the last time I say goodbye,soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,leaving mI haven't locked the door, Nor lit the candles, You don't know, don't care, That tired I haven't the strength To decide to go to bed. Seeing the fields fade in The sunset murk of pine-needles, And to know all is lost,

That life is a cursed hell: I've got drunk On your voice in the doorway. I was sure you'd come back.

I pray to the sunbeam from the window - It is pale, thin, straight. Since morning I have been silent, And my heart - is split. The copper on my washstand Has turned green, But the sunbeam plays on it So charmingly. How innocent it is, and simple, In the evening calm, But to me in this deserted temple It's like a golden celebration, And a consolation.

Lying in me, as though it were a white Stone in the depths of a well, is one Memory that I cannot, will not, fight: It is happiness, and it is pain. Anyone looking straight into my eyes Could not help seeing it, and could not fail To become thoughtful, more sad and quiet Than if he were listening to some tragic tale.

I know the gods changed people into things, Leaving their consciousness alive and free. To keep alive the wonder of suffering, You have been metamorphosed into me.

I hear the oriole's always-grieving voice, And the rich summer's welcome loss I hear In the sickle's serpentine hiss Cutting the corn's ear tightly pressed to ear. And the short skirts of the slim reapers Fly in the wind like holiday pennants, The clash of joyful cymbals, and creeping From under dusty lashes, the long glance.

I don't expect love's tender flatteries, In premonition of some dark event, But come, come and see this paradise Where together we were blessed and innocent.